- Kanye West and Ty Dolla $ign were accused of copyright infringement on their new album, “Vultures 1.”
- Ozzy Osbourne and Donna Summer’s estate said West asked for their permission but was denied.
- Copyright experts told Business Insider the samples appear to be a “clear-cut” case against West.
Kanye West could be in legal hot water if he really did take all those samples without permission to use in his latest album, “Vultures 1,” with Ty Dolla $ign.
West — also known by his stage name Ye — was accused by original Black Sabbath vocalist Ozzy Osbourne and the estate of the late disco icon Donna Summer of using samples of their music even after both publicly said that they had denied giving the rapper permission.
Summer’s estate said last week that West rerecorded and changed the lyrics to her 1977 hit tune “I Feel Love” in his track “Good (Don’t Die)” and accused the rapper of copyright infringement in a post on Instagram.
“Kanye West… asked permission to use Donna Summer’s song I Feel Love, he was denied… he changed the words, had someone re sing it or used AI but it’s I Feel Love… copyright infringement!!!” Billboard reported the post, which was added to the story of Donna Summer’s estate account and disappeared after 24 hours, read.
And Osbourne said West swiped an instrumental clip of the band performing “Iron Man” in 1983 and used it in one of his songs at a listening party. Osbourne wrote on X that he refused Ye permission to use the song because “HE IS AN ANTISEMITE AND HAS CAUSED UNTOLD HEARTACHE TO MANY.”
Representatives for Osbourne and Summer did not immediately respond to Business Insider’s request for comment.
Kanye has publicly praised Hitler
West faced intense scrutiny last year when he made a series of antisemitic comments, including saying he’d go “death con 3 on Jewish people” after his Instagram was briefly banned for posting comments some viewed as anti-Jewish and telling conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, “I like Hitler.”
Though Ozzy Osbourne left Black Sabbath in 1979, his wife, Sharon Osbourne, told Billboard any songs the band wrote — Osbourne, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler, and Bill Ward — require the approval of all four members to license.
While West ultimately swapped out the “Iron Man” sample for a sample of “Hell of a Life” — one of his own songs from his album “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy” — in the final cut of the song, Sharon Osbourne told Rolling Stone that she and her husband were “considering legal action.”
The “Vultures 1” album was briefly pulled from iTunes and Apple Music on Thursday amid copyright concerns, per Billboard, though the album reappeared hours later. Ultimately, the outlet reported the album wasn’t pulled due to copyright issues but rather a dispute by distributor FUGA regarding the publication of the tracks.
“Late last year, FUGA was presented with the opportunity to release ‘Vultures 1,'” a spokesperson said in a statement to Billboard. “Exercising our judgment in the ordinary course of business, we declined to do so.”
The statement added: “On Friday, February 9, 2024, a long-standing FUGA client delivered the album ‘Vultures 1’ through the platform’s automated processes, violating our service agreement. Therefore, FUGA is actively working with its DSP partners and the client to remove ‘Vultures 1’ from our systems.”
“Vultures 1” is now being distributed by Label Engine, per Billboard.
However, the song “Good (Don’t Die),” which appears to sample portions of Donna Summer’s 1977 hit “I Feel Love,” was taken down from Spotify on Wednesday, Billboard reported, with Amazon Music following suit on Thursday. As of publication, the single has not returned to either platform.
The limited right to sample other artists
Ty Dolla $ign — legal name Tyrone William Griffin Jr. — hasn’t publicly commented on the matter.
In a cryptic post on Instagram — his only public reference to the incident so far — West posted a photo of Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne dressed up as West and his wife, Bianca Censori — while wearing Halloween costumes last year.
West wrote in a caption to the photo that Ozzy “obviously has a celebrity handler who’s on his account,” The Daily Mail reported.
Regardless of the social media feud, legal experts say if true, the unauthorized use of the samples would be a “clear-cut” case of copyright infringement.
“This one, from everything I’ve seen, is clear cut, and Kanye’s response also suggests that it was clear he modified the work. He didn’t dispute it,” entertainment attorney Donald M. Woodard of Carter and Woodard told Business Insider.
Woodard explained that West would have needed to clear both the master recording and the underlying composition, meaning Osbourne and Summer may have the copyright to either one or both song elements. Even if West rerecords the music — which exempts him from having to clear the master recording — he would still have to clear the composition.
As for how West and Ty Dolla $ign were able to release a song with other copyrighted material, Woodard said it’s common for music business artists to sneak in samples.
“Major labels have a clearance department, and they actually have someone on staff that will listen and have a pretty keen ear to detect when there’s probably a sample or an interpolation,” Woodard said. “Then the artist is notified, and the artist’s team will have to see to clear the record or clear the use, so that’s not unusual.”
There are some scenarios where you can copy a portion of someone else’s work and have what appears to be infringement. Still, the sample is legally acceptable, Robert Freund, a business litigator, told BI.
The two scenarios, he said, include fair use and “de minimis” use, meaning if the portion of the content being sampled takes so little from original work that no one will recognize where it’s from.
“A de minimis argument is not going to be available to Kanye West if this situation were litigated,” Freund told BI. “Because I listened to the sample that he took, and the whole point of him sampling it is because everyone recognizes that’s the ‘Iron Man’ riff; it’s like one of the most famous guitar riffs in rock history. That’s off the table.”
Likewise, Freund added, West won’t be able to avail himself of a fair use argument either. The courts consider a series of factors when determining whether copying an existing work is fair use, including the purpose of the new work, if the new work is transformative in some way, and how much of the original is used.
“It’s really a case-by-case determination,” Freund told BI. “But in my opinion, I don’t think any of the factors that a court would look at favor Kanye in a scenario like that.”
West is no stranger to sampling and has made a career from using a diverse range of artists and genres — from gospel to rock to funk — to create his music. Ye previously legally sampled “Iron Man” in his 2010 song “Hell of a Life.”
Osbourne’s recent objection to West’s sample would be considered a new copyright claim, as the license for use does not permit West to sample the song in perpetuity. And while Osbourne’s opinions about West as a person have no bearing on a copyright claim, Freund added, “Ozzy would have a good argument that this sort of unauthorized sampling deprives him of the ability to monetize derivative uses of his work.”
West has gotten into hot water for his uncleared samples before. In 2022, Chicago artist Marshall Jefferson accused the rapper of using his song “Move Your Body” in the West song “Flowers” without permission.
Representatives for West and Griffin did not immediately respond to Business Insider’s request for comment.
